The search for home: a dialectic of alienation and belonging

Abstract:

The notion of home is one which stirs deeply within us. The search for home is guided by an almost ineffable sense of longing. It is search which we share as
common, yet the longing is intensely personal and the constructions of our home
unique. At the heart of this search are our experiences of alienation and belonging. The process of negotiating our sense of alienation and belonging, separation and
togetherness is fundamental to the way in which we experience, construct our
identities and make meaning.
Our sense of home is inextricably related to our sense of identity. Our identities
carry with them the markers that help us to resonate with a situation or feel
alienated from it, to join with it or remain apart. At the same time our sense of
alienation and belonging will playa role in the construction of our identities.
This study explores the participants' experience of their search for home and their experiences of alienation and belonging that pave this journey. It suggests that there is a dialectical nature between alienation and belonging. This particular dialectic influences our meaning making and can be a frame through which we view our experiences. The dialectic shifts and shifts along with identity. Identity in turn operat~s to shift our experience of alienation and belonging.
The study will explore how I ,see the theme of alienation and belonging operating in my own life and will create a context for the rest of the study. It will explore the relationship between epistemology and identity. It will make particular reference to then theme of the bounded monad that runs through modern epistemology. It will look at the potential for this to shift to one of greater connections as understanding of identity is seen within a postmodern epistemology. Epistemology and identity therefore form a broad context in which a sense of alienation and belonging is experienced.
The study views alienation and belonging as a broad template of experience that can be used to frame experiences and negotiate a way through experiences of 'stuckness'. It does not seek to prove, but rather to open a domain of conversation with which the reader can explore her own experiences and perhaps find resonance.